The Flood | Page 7

the second house
collapsed, leaving a gap in the route. Then a chill seized us. We
mechanically grasped each other's hands, wringing them cruelly as we
watched the harrowing sight.
Cyprien had tried at first to stiffen his body. With extraordinary
strength, he had lifted himself above the water, holding his body in an
oblique position. Rut the strain was too great. Nevertheless, he
struggled, tried to reach some of the beams, felt around him for
something to hold to. Then, resigning himself, he fell back again,
hanging limp.
Death was slow in coming. The water barely covered his hair, and it
rose very gradually. He must have felt its coolness on his brain. A wave
wet his brow; others closed his eyes. Slowly we saw his head
disappear.
The women, at our feet, had buried their faces in their clasped hands.

We, ourselves, fell to our knees, our arms outstretched, weeping,
stammering supplications.
On the other roof Aimee, still standing, her children clasped to her
bosom, howled mournfully into the night.
IV.
I know not how long we remained in a stupor after that tragedy. When I
came to, the water had risen. It was now on a level with the tiles. The
roof was a narrow island, emerging from the immense sheet. To the
right and the left the houses must have crumbled.
"We are moving," murmured Rose, who clung to the tiles.
And we all experienced the effect of rolling, as if the roof had become
detached and turned into a raft. The swift currents seemed to be drifting
us away. Then, when we looked at the church clock, immovable
opposite us, the dizziness ceased; we found ourselves in the same place
in the midst of the waves.
Then the water began an attack. Until then the stream had followed the
street; but the debris that encumbered it deflected the course. And when
a drifting object, a beam, came within reach of the current, it seized it
and directed it against the house like a battering-ram. Soon ten, a dozen,
beams were attacking us on all sides. The water roared. Our feet were
spattered with foam. We heard the dull moaning of the house full of
water. There were moments when the attacks became frenzied, when
the beams battered fiercely; and then we thought that the end was near,
that the walls would open and deliver us to the river.
Gaspard had risked himself upon the edge of the roof. He had seized a
rafter and drawn it to him.
"We must defend ourselves," he cried.
Jacques, on his side, had stopped a long pole in its passage. Pierre
helped him. I cursed my age that left me without strength, as feeble as a
child. But the defense was organized--a drill between three men and a
river. Gaspard, holding his beam in readiness, awaited the driftwood
that the current sent against us, and be stopped it a short distance from
the walls. At times the shock was so rude that he fell. Beside him
Jacques and Pierre manipulated the long pole. During nearly an hour
that unending fight continued. And the water retained its tranquil
obstinacy, invincible.
Then Jacques and Pierre succumbed, prostrated; while Gaspard, in a

last violent thrust, had his beam wrested from him by the current. The
combat was useless.
Marie and Veronique had thrown themselves into each other's arms.
They repeated incessantly one phrase--a phrase of terror that I still hear
ringing in my ears:
"I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"
Rose put her arms about them. She tried to console them, to reassure
them. And she herself, trembling, raised her face and cried out, in spite
of herself:
"I don't want to die!"
Aunt Agathe alone said nothing. She no longer prayed, no longer made
the sign of the cross. Bewildered, her eyes roamed about, and she tried
to smile when her glance met mine.
The water was beating against the tiles now. There was no hope of help.
We still heard the voices in the direction of the church; two lanterns
had passed in the distance; and the silence spread over the immense
yellow sheet. The people of Saintin, who owned boats, must have been
surprised before us.
Gaspard continued to wander over the Roof. Suddenly he called us.
"Look!" he said. "Help me--hold me tight!"
He had a pole and be was watching an enormous black object that was
gently drifting toward the house. It was the roof of a shed, made of
strong boards, and that was floating like a raft. When it was within
reach he stopped it with the pole, and, as he felt himself being carried
off, he called to us. We held him around the waist.
Then, as the mass entered the current,